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Mental Incapacity Bill
Mr. Leigh: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if, in the proposed Mental Incapacity Bill for England and Wales, nutrition and hydration by artificial means will be defined as medication. [99267]
Yvette Cooper: As outlined in my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor's Policy Statement: "Making Decisions--The Government's proposals for making decisions on behalf of mentally incapacitated adults", we have no plans to enshrine such a definition in statute law.
ME/CFS
Mr. Luff: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make a statement on his policy on the treatment of ME/CFS in young people and the principle of parental consent to their removal from their home for such treatment; [99453]
- (2) if he will make a statement on the provision of specific treatment centres for ME/CFS and on the system of inspection for the centres. [99452]
Mr. Denham: The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis are not fully understood, nor is there a generally agreed method of treatment. Treatment to relieve the wide variety of symptoms which patients can experience is, therefore, a matter for individual doctors to decide in consultation with their patients.
The National Health Service provides a considerable number of services to which people suffering from CFS/ME have access, and such patients are seen within a wide range of hospital specialities. The CFS/ME Working Group will produce guidance aimed at improving the quality of this care and treatment.
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The Children's Group of the CFS/ME Working Group, which has been established to review management and practice in the field of CFS/ME with the aim of providing best practice guidance for professionals, patients and carers to improve the quality of care and treatment for people with CFS/ME, will, as the name suggests, focus on issues specific to children. This will include educational and social services issues as well as child specific research. It is also considering reviewing practice in paediatric clinics.
Consent of a young person who has reached the age of 16 to their own medical or surgical treatment is sufficient unless they are not competent to give valid consent, where the consent of a person with parental responsibility should be sought. Such power only extends until the person is 18. The refusal of treatment by a young person competent to give consent may be overridden by consent from a person with parental responsibility or the Courts, provided the treatment is in the young person's best interest. Where the young person is not competent to give consent and a person with parental responsibility refuses consent, the Courts can over-rule that refusal if to do so would be in the child's best interest.
Mr. Luff:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what experiments are taking place on young patients suffering from ME/CFS; and if he will make a statement. [99450]
Mr. Denham:
We are not aware of any experiments taking place on young patients with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Mr. Luff:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research his Department is (a) undertaking and (b) funding into the causes of ME/CFS; and what assessment he has made of the prospects for the success of such research. [99449]
Mr. Denham:
The Government fund health and medical research in a number of ways:
The Department funds research and development to support its work on policy development and evaluation in health and social care. The Department also manages the National Health Service research and development levy which is used to support research and development of relevance to the National Health Service in hospitals, general practice and other health care settings, and to fund the NHS research and development programme. In addition, the Medical Research Council (MRC)--which receives most of its income via grant-in-aid from the office of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry--funds medical research as part of the Government's funding of the science and engineering base.
The MRC has provided support for a Small Project Grant in the area of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, undertaken by Dr. R. K. Morriss at the University of Manchester, entitled "The role of noradrenaline in the neuropsychological pathogenesis on the chronic fatigue syndrome". The total amount awarded was £37,241 and the study was concluded this year.
The NHS research and development programme is supporting the following projects:
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Mrs. May:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list those health authorities that finance the use of chelation therapy for patients. [99232]
Yvette Cooper:
Information is not held centrally on the funding of this therapy by health authorities. Chelation therapy may be used in the treatment of a variety of diseases and is available in various forms.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the current arrangements for disposing of embryos. [99265]
Yvette Cooper:
Section 17 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Act 1990 provides that the person responsible in a licensed clinic must ensure that proper arrangements are made for the disposal of gametes or embryos that have been allowed to perish.
In its Code of Practice the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority provides that, where an embryo is no longer to be kept for treatment the centre should decide how it is allowed to perish and what is to happen to the perished material. The authority requires the procedure to be sensitively devised and described, and that it should be communicated to the people for whom the embryo was being stored if they so wish.
Mr. Ian Stewart:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to make Carisolv gel available to NHS dental patients; and if he will make a statement. [99389]
Mr. Denham:
Carisolv gel is available for use by dentists throughout the European Union and this includes its availability to National Health Service dental patients.
Mr. Ian Stewart:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the large scale vaccine trials of the pertussis whole cell vaccine were carried out in Sweden and Germany; and if he will place a copy of the report of the trials in the Library. [99447]
Yvette Cooper:
Large-scale clinical trials of acellular pertussis vaccines that include whole cell pertussis vaccines as a comparison group were conducted in Sweden between 1992 and 1996 and in Germany between 1991 and 1995. Findings from these clinical trials were published and the following references have been placed in the Library:
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Mr. Amess:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will implement the recommendations of the NHS Health Technology report entitled "A Systematic Review of the Role of HPV Testing in the Cervical Screening Programme". [99750]
Dr. Gibson:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment his Department has made of the NHS Health Technology report, "A Systematic Review of the Role of HPV Testing in the Cervical Screening Programme". [99720]
Mr. Austin:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will introduce testing for the human papilloma virus for the triage of borderline smears, as recommended by the NHS Health Technology report entitled "A Systematic Review of the Role of HPV Testing in the Cervical Screening Programme". [100185]
Yvette Cooper:
An outline proposal on pilot studies using human papilloma viruses testing as triage for mild and borderline cervical smears, as recommended in the National Health Service Health Technology Assessment report, will be discussed at the National Screening Committee's meeting in Belfast on 8 December. The National Screening Committee will advise Ministers in light of these discussions.
Chronic fatigue syndrome after acute Q fever: a follow-up study of the 1989 outbreak cohort--Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham
Project details of work directly funded by the Department or supported through the NHS R&D levy can be found on the National Research Register (NRR).
Should general practitioners manage chronic fatigue syndrome?--University of Hull
Family focused cognitive behavioural therapy for adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome--King's College School of Medicine, London
Gustafsson L et al. A controlled trial of two-component acellular, a five-component acellular and a whole cell pertussis vaccine. N. Engl J. Med 1996; 334:349-55.
Olin P et al. Randomised controlled trial of a two-component, three-component, and five-component acellular pertussis vaccines compared with whole-cell pertussis vaccine. Lancet 1997; 350: 1569-77.
Schmitt H-J et al. Efficacy of acellular pertussis vaccine in early childhood after household exposure. JAMA 1996; 275: 37-41.
Liese J.G. et al. Efficacy of a two-component acellular pertussis vaccine in infants. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 1997; 16: 1038-44.
Heininger U. et al. Comparative efficacy of the Ledele/Takeda acellular pertussis component DTP vaccine and Lederle whole-cell component DTP vaccine in German children after household exposure. Pediatrics 1998; 102: 546-553.
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